Page 192 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS 208 Johan S. et al.
b. Enhanced data visualisation through geo-referencing
While the IFS regulation allows costs and burdens to be reduced, it
enhances the potential for geographical data analysis. The regulation requires
information on the geographical location of each farm, namely the code of the
cell where each farm is located (using the 1 km INSPIRE statistical units grid
2
for pan-European usage ). INSPIRE is based on the infrastructure for spatial
information established and operated by the EU member states. It enables
environmental spatial information to be shared among public sector
organisations and assists in policy-making across boundaries.
Geo-referencing of statistical information at the farm level means that
each holding included in a dataset is assigned a high-accuracy geo-reference
code. The 1 km grid should be used as a geo-referencing framework. When
studying socioeconomic and environmental phenomena such as flooding, a
system of grids with equal-size grid cells has many advantages: it allows for
easy comparisons, ensures stability over time and allows for hierarchical
aggregation, depending on the specific purpose.
INSPIRE provides recommendations on how to assign stable identifiers (codes)
to statistical units (agricultural holdings). Having holdings assigned to detailed
geographic areas (1 km grid cells) enriches data analysis and allows
tabulations to be produced for additional geographic entities that are more
detailed than NUTS and cross-border tabulations when quality is good
enough, thereby meeting relevant policy needs. For example, data can
describe geographic entities such as river basin districts and Natura 2000 sites.
The Commission uses hydrological definitions of basins and sub-basins to
assess water balance by the basin of main rivers and tributaries in the EU. IFS
data is crucial in making estimates like this. Tabular data are treated for
3
confidentiality and suppressed or aggregated to the upper nested grid level .
This occurs when tabular data are unreliable, based on the values of estimated
sampling errors, or when the 1 km grid contains 10 or fewer agricultural
holdings or is too small for the average farm size in the grid. The upper nested
grid cells of 5 km, 10 km or even larger are used as required. Reliable data can
be displayed using maps for enhanced data visualisation.

3. Results
The new IFS regulation entered into force only in August 2018. It is thus
still too early to quantify exactly how much the new system will reduce the
burden and costs which data collections entail.
Before developing and adopting the IFS regulation, the Commission
conducted a formal impact assessment. On the basis of model scenarios, it
estimated that the IFS Regulation would bring net monetary savings of around

2 Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010

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